Ras is such a hack its hard to take anything the man says at face value guy had McCain winning Indiana and North Carolina by like 7-10 points, dudes overall track record is sketchy and you can't respect a man who introduces new polling metrics expressly to make a Pol look less popular than he would have looked in your (and every other pollsters) previous metric.

being anointed by Act Blue constitutes first hand knowledge of buttinksiism.

Yes, it happens. But it used to happen quietly, behind the scenes. Unions would use intermediaries to let candidates know there'd be money for them later so burn through everything you got in the primary.

Letting the netroots spearhead anti-Blue Dog efforts is bad strategy. The netroots could as easily work to build grassroots. Out of state money into one candidate's coffers is a top>down solution.

Netroots money to build local online news services is bottom>up problem solving. As are ads chipping away at the Blue Dogs, national blogs ripping on Blue Dogs, etc.

What I object to is the netroots choosing the Blue Dog killers. What is so heinous about letting the locals choose, and the netroots fund?